House kills impeachment effort
But lawmakers vote to hold Barr, Ross in contempt on census
The House ended a rogue impeachment push but voted to hold two top officials in contempt of Congress.
WASHINGTON — The House killed a maverick Democrat’s effort Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for his recent racial insults against four lawmakers of color in a vote that provided an early snapshot of just how divided Democrats are over trying to oust him in the shadow of the 2020 elections.
Democrats leaned against the resolution by Texas Rep. Al Green by about a 3-2 margin as the chamber killed the measure 332-95.
But the Democratic-run House did vote to hold two top Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas related to a decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
The House voted 230-198 to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt. The vote is largely symbolic because the Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute them.
The action marks an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.
Four Democrats opposed the contempt measure: Reps. Anthony Brindisi of New York, Jared Golden of Maine, Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey. All but Lamb are in their first term and all represent swing districts. Independent Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a former Republican, supported the contempt measure.
Trump abandoned the citizenship question last week after the Supreme Court said the administration’s justification for the question “seems to have been contrived.”
Trump directed agencies to try to compile the information using existing databases.
The Justice and Commerce departments have produced over 31,000 pages of documents to the House regarding the census, administration officials said.
But Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the contempt vote was an important step to assert Congress’ constitutional authority to serve as a check on executive power.
“Holding any secretary in criminal contempt of Congress is a serious and sober matter — one that I have done everything in my power to avoid,” Cummings said during House debate. “But in the case of the attorney general and Secretary Ross, they blatantly obstructed our ability to do congressional oversight into the real reason Secretary Ross was trying for the first time in 70 years to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.”
The earlier vote on Green’s resolution showed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been successful in her effort to prevent a Democratic stampede toward impeachment before additional evidence is developed that could win over a public that has been skeptical about ousting Trump.
Even so, the numbers also showed that the number of Democrats open to impeachment remains substantial.
Every voting Republican favored derailing Green’s measure.
Pelosi and other party leaders considered his resolution a premature exercise that needlessly forced vulnerable swing-district lawmakers to cast a perilous and divisive vote. It also risked deepening Democrats’ already raw rift over impeachment, dozens of the party’s most liberal lawmakers itching to oust Trump.
As some Democrats feared, the measure’s defeat — the House’s first vote on removing Trump since Democrats took control of the chamber this year — also opened the door for him to claim vindication.
“You see the overwhelming vote against impeachment and that’s the end of it,” Trump told reporters as he arrived for a campaign rally Wednesday in North Carolina. “Let the Democrats now go back to work,” he said, calling the effort the “most ridiculous project I’ve ever been involved in.”
Recent polling has shown solid majorities oppose impeachment.
Even if the House would vote to impeach Trump, the equivalent of filing formal charges, a trial by the Republican-led Senate would all but certainly acquit him, keeping him in office.
Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters earlier that six House committees are investigating Trump.
“That is the serious path we’re on,” she said.
Democrats are also eagerly awaiting next week’s scheduled public testimony to two House committees by special counsel Robert Mueller.
With Democrats preparing to defend their House majority in next year’s elections, Green’s measure put incumbents in closely divided districts in a difficult spot. Democrats owe their House majority to 39 challengers who won in 2018 in what had been GOP-held districts, places where moderate voters largely predominate.